Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Wisdom-ing
How It Really Works
Okay, this is a bit mythic, and speculative: The cosmos breathes, the rate of expansion and contraction operating along the course of what in mathematics is known as a sine wave—not a spike, not a square wave—but gradually then faster then slower then that sequence going in the opposite direction. It becomes more complex and […]
How We Become
This is a contemplation that deals with the need for repeated self-creation, and builds on the system of Individual Psychology that was developed in the 1920s by Alfred Adler. Adler noted that children by the time they’re five tend to have implicitly answered—made up a story—about (1) who they are; (2) who others are; (3) […]
Hyper-Complexity
My spirituality continues to evolve. I’m 78½ and some would say I’m too old for continuing evolution, but it’s a promise to younger people that life can get better and better even as in some ways one declines. A colleague and I will be presenting on ways action explorations (i.e., psychodramatic methods) can facilitate spiritual […]
Hyper-Cosmic Metaphysics
What I call the “hyper-cosmos” is everything: It includes the material universe; and also all the permutations of both recognized physical forms and also psychic and spiritual forms of “energy” in the not-so-material universe; plus all permutations of mind in the pretty-much-non-material universe; and beyond that, the spiritual dimensions that are quite immaterial; plus, finally, […]
I Did It Thy Way
One of my favorite songs to sing in the shower over the last few decades is the Frank Sinatra theme song, “My Way,” (the words actually by Paul Anka); but about ten years ago in the shower Uncle Bud, my conscience, said to me, “Come on, you didn’t do it your way!” “Whaddaya mean?” says […]
I Found God (Sort-of)
At least I think it’s God. Or, more likely, a projection of Her/His/Its shadow. The Ground of Being itself can’t be directly perceived with either senses or even intuition. Anyway, as I get ready to turn eighty, I do believe there’s something that gives rise to our reality “Higher Power” is the wrong word. It […]
I Gotta Be Me (?)
This cartoon by Gary Larson over 20 years ago struck me as funny. There’s a part of me who is this penguin. There’s another part who finds my stance pitiful, because I know that there are thousands, millions of other entities working “in the fields of the Lord” to advance humanity and the evolution of […]
If I Was Smarter…
In the olden days, when I was young…. Well, now that I think of it, when I was middle-aged, too. Indeed, a couple of years ago I still was making mistakes that I don’t make as often nowadays. Am I getting smarter? And if I would have been smarter, what would have come of it? […]
If Not Resurrection or Reincarnation, What?
A friend of mine wrote about “past lives” and this stimulated my thinking about other possibilities: One possibility—this is of course rank speculation—is that “we” dissolve into the Great Becoming-ness, having contributed our lives to that process, adding a little creativity here, posing a bit of a problem there, perhaps giving to the becoming-ness of […]
If You Can Change The Way You Look At Things…
… the things you look at change. This was sent to me as part of another email-blog from Chuck & Karen Robison at www.whatifitreallyworks.com Wow. And of course I like mandalas so…
Illusions and Foolishness I
A few months ago my son David and I were chatting about ways people lapse into illusion and foolishness, and he suggested that I write it up as a book, or at least put it on the blog. I came up with several score items—well, actually I blurted out, “There are a hundred of them!” […]
Illusions: A Wider Perspective
Two topics (among many others) on my mind seem to be overlapping as I discover more books reflecting more research on the topic: illusion and critical thinking. It turns out Freud just opened the door a crack—the unconscious is far more vast and complicated than he ever knew! (Freud once likened himself to Columbus and […]
Implications of Science on Theology
I contemplated God today and took a turn for the apophatic in contrast to the cataphatic way to appreciate divinity. While cataphatic speaks of the positive qualities of God, the apophatic speaks of what God is not, how God must transcend all notions that can be conceptualized by humanity. In supporting my thinking, I considered […]
Improvisation and the Burden of Shame
Hypothesis: A key element in improvisation is the willingness—even a bit of an expectation—to make mistakes, with a fair degree of confidence that when these mistakes are made, they can be coped with in a number of ways: – joked about, with gentle, self-forgiving, self-deprecating humor exaggerated pride, consciously denied (“well, that was just what […]
Improvisational Theology
In 1979 Elaine Pagels wrote a book titled The Gnostic Gospels (Vintage Books), in which she noted that for the Gnostics, being considered “spiritually mature” or “initiated” was to write something that is stimulatingly original. That’s how I understood it. We have been living through millennia of quasi-worship of those who presume to know enough […]
In-Between Dream Songs
We finished our spring concert of the Sun City Singers, and the songs keep running through my mind. This happens: By about three weeks before a concert to about three weeks after, the songs become invasive, filling the time between dreams. I’ve been in this singers’ chorus for over 18 years and three times a […]
Interspirituality
I was just reminded of the movement towards “inter-spirituality.” The late Brother Wayne Teasdale was a pioneer, among many others. Kurt Johnson, and others lead a trend—or at least a part of a trend towards this on this website: https://unity.earth/ which is a workshop that weaves together a number of related endeavors! Other new endeavors […]
Interspirituality: The Next Step
I’ve just been reading a book, The coming interspiritual age, by Kurt Johnson & David Robert Ord (Vancouver: Namaste, 2012—just published!) It explains at length—delightfully!—just why now’s the time! I do sense a shift from spirituality based on content to spirituality based on process—but more about that anon. The books was a Christmas present from […]
Introducing “Action Explorations”
I’ve written a great deal of psychodrama, which is a sort of therapeutic role playing. Now several approaches deliver this from several angles—sociodrama, drama therapy, applied improvisation, biblio-drama, the creative arts therapies (often insert some psychodrama), etc. Meanwhile, I’m turning increasingly away from therapeutic psychodrama and toward what I call “action explorations,” which has no […]
It’s All Mush: A Co-Creative Metaphysics
Around 25 years ago I was sitting with my sweet wife, Allee, in Black’s Barbecue in Lockhart, Texas, and I asked her, “What’s it all about?” She answered, “It’s all mush. You can do anything you want with it.” It was a playful remark, but at a deep level I experienced a certain core of […]
J. L. Moreno, M.D.—Some Thoughts
Next year they’re running an article on Daimon, a literary journal Moreno edited a century ago. Moreno was a multi-dimensional genius, with ideas branching into philosophy as well as medicine; sociology as well as history; and so forth. He needs to be recognized as reaching well beyond his field of medicine and the remedying of […]
Jung & Dimensionality
I like the work of Carl G. Jung, and want to note that his "thing" wasn’t really therapy so much as self-discovery. That this would help people was a side-benefit. The human mind is capable of mysticism, and maybe more. The mind taps into the 8th dimension, which is to the human mind as the […]
Jung and Moreno
I’ve recently encountered a paper about Jung and Moreno, which reminded me of some books, and it got me thinking, as I am wont to do. Jung, whom Freud dis-missed as messing in the dark mud of occult-ism, plumbs the non-rational that suffuses the realm of the unconscious. (Dreams, for example!) Jung opens some doors, […]